I think there was a trend for low powered, usually less expensive, sports cars to be marketed towards fashion conscious young women. So a lot of hairdressers did buy them at some point.
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I had a mate that bought a cabriolet for his wife… they had it sold again within 6months. Apparently, anyone sitting in an open top, when they stop at the traffic lights, or slow moving lane etc, becomes fair game for every would-be comedian to shake-up their can of lager or sugar drinks and spray the occupants of the car, and/or even yobs ‘gobbing’… It happened 5 or 6 times he said…
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If this is true, then no wonder European carmakers are struggling. Seeing it as a potential source of margin expansion rather than trying to actually compete. As the source opinion piece points out, if they keep persisting with this, they will be extinct like the fossils in the fuels they keep trying to push sooner rather than later.
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Probably not for this thread but it seems to me that everywhere I look capitalism is failing. More and more focus on profit leading to a collspse of some description and more often than not its people left to live with or fix the problem.
This is just another example of it for me. They’re clearly trying to recoup the initial investment in a big hurry or just trying to rip people off. You see this all over, US health care, UK water industry, UK energy, supermarkets etc.
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Closest thread for this here… I think.!
Anyway, when its not your time to die I guess
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There are reports that Nissan and Honda are looking to merge:
I’m not sure where this would leave the Renault-Nissan alliance.
I suspect that this will not be the last merger of legacy motor manufacturers.
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With vehicles increasingly being used as weapons, surely the logical step is to ban them in the interests of public safety, no? 
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Knife attackers tend to run around using their legs. Best to chop all our legs off ASAP…
…or ban knives…oh wait they are…kind of…
Just slow them down so bicylces become the terrorists weapon of choice. Lycra works great when on fire, just ask @SBYM.
I’ve seen @SBYM in Lycra. Scarier than any terrorist, trust me.
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Haha @SBYM
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Vehicles aren’t the problem. Peaple driving them are.
I say ban people!
I’ve been saying it for years.
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I’m sure this will go down well.
The cynic in me feels as though this is just intensive lobbying by a few manufacturers to obtain more subsidies/competitive aids. If they were that concerned about the future of EV adoption in general, they would be far more concerned about the national grid and charging infrastructure.
They’ve rested on their laurels for so long, it’s only a matter of time before these dinosaurs get decimated by the Chinese automotive industry. It’s a sad day, but that’s the “free” (because let’s face it, the Chinese EV industry is only here today in large part due to subsidies and investments from their own government) market for you.
Ahhhhh, matching his and hers coolers 
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Ha.
Small one I bought for a camping trip 30y ago, small, good for day trips in the boat and picnics. Larger one has wheels and will keep food cold for an entire weekend with a 4L ice block in it (great use for a plastic milk container)
Update on the alpine, have been doing some tracing of the electrical in the car, fixing some bad grounds and why some of the gauges are not working
Got most of it working. Signals wont work when the brakes are applied still, trying to work that out still but a low priority as I won’t be doing any long drives this time of year
Engine was missing some key components which were removed or lost at some point. Valve cover releases quite a bit of smoke which I think is due to worn piston rings, crank-case is venting that way. But it still runs. Gave the dual-Zeniths a some cleaner and ran some fresh gas through it a few days back when it was dry out, got about 5min of putting up and down the street but I noticed the temp gauge wasn’t moving so I shut it down. Good thing, as I found a coolant leak when I parked it. In process of replacing the two lines to the radiator, drained the system last night and pulled the hoses off.
Gave the interior a preliminary cleaning, tomorrow will be heading to the parts store to get new hoses and fresh fluids
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I think the problem for most other car manufacturers is that BYD has had extensive history in battery manufacturing and technology, while it’s had 20 years to catch up on the car manufacturing side, which the likes of Hyundai and Kia show is quite a lot of time, not to mention with the benefit of modern technology.
The simple fact is, in this market, price still matters a lot, and if the Chinese EV manufacturers are the only ones who are producing cheaper EVs, then it’s game over. I posted this two months ago now:
European manufacturers (no idea about American ones) are shooting themselves in the foot by trying to use protectionist measures to extract profit instead of investing to catch up.
The advantage of Chinese EVs will not be eroded by going protectionist, but by investing. The brand cachet of the traditional manufacturers is still there, but they’re running out of time…
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